I get so angry

thursday

Bronze Member
I can lose my temper in a spilt second. I was trying to open my email on my laptap. This didn't work; wrong password. The password was right. I am 1oo% sure. Than I get so fffff angry, I start to scream and shout. Next I begin throwing anything that's near me. I don't care anymore if I damage my phone or what else. It seems to have gotten worse since I've started the therapy. It's kind of a blind rage.
 
What just happened? After I thought about the above, I said to myself ; You're life has been fcuked up by your brothers. They sexually abused me over several years. It's no wonder you're so angry. Whole my life I felt if I was abnormal. So many things I couldn't do. For example having a relationship.
Then I began to cry out loud, as I never have done. O yes I cried, I cried rivers. Then I began to scream, like a banshee or it seemed there was some kind of devil coming out of me. Then I cried again. a kind of surrendering it was I suppose.
 
I was prescribed buspirone to modulate my emotions and it helped with my intense dysregulation but an unexpected bonus was I became able to be in crowds, etc. Then I read a study about sub therapeutic dose of Zoloft to control temper and anger in PTSD cases. I asked my doc about it and he prescribed it. Right away my constant state of frustration stopped. Unexpectedly I stopped cursing. Anger almost completely disappeared. It might be worth looking into, it really helped me.
 
totally get it. some describe inner anger levels as a cup, near spill over and precariously balanced. Mine is more like a balloon, pretty well contained and stable but not accepting any more and any escape is in the form of a total release. You hear the pop? Too late, coming your way. At least until i start the process of getting it back onto another balloon anyway. days? weeks? feels like screw it, never again some days
 
total empathy, thursday. my temper is so volatile that i can go from a sweetie to a fist weilding meanie quicker 'n' trump can change cabinet appointees. when i try to "control" my anger, i start random targeting like a blind woman in a hurricane.

anger channeling is my saving grace. when i take the time to channel my anger rather than attempt to repress it, i can keep it to a bit of bitchiness that is easily amended.
 
Here’s a potential reason the smallest thing is enough to send you over the edge: The PTSD cup

A lot of folks, when they enter treatment, will start monitoring their SUDS (Subjective Units of Distress) in some way. That’s, basically, checking in with yourself throughout the day and asking “how full is my stress cup right now?”

Your stress cup (or SUDS, depending on what’s easier) overflows, or hits 10 out of 10 when you get angry and start throwing stuff. Despite how it feels in that moment, there is build up to that.

So, how high are my SUDS when I wake up in the morning (for me, 2 out of 10 - I’m awake, and about as relaxed as I get). I hit about 5 by the time I get to work, with little things bumping that number up or down throughout the day.

Practicing awareness and self-monitoring of that mean you begin to the get the heads up, in advance, “I need to do something to bring my SUDS down/empty my stress cup a bit, because I’m only a irritating computer glitch away from throwing shit”.

Loads of things help de-stress, and vary from one person to the next:)
 
2.5 Useful Things

PTSD STRESS CUP

ICEBERG OF EMOTIONS

And on the personal side of things ( the 1/2 )

A summery…
I learned to control my temper by systematically breaking a crate/pallet (several hundred individual count) of glassware. At first each and every time I got angry I marched myself to the garage and threw glasses at the wall until I felt better. Eventually I could start to recognize that I was going to need to go out to the shed soon, and pre-empt needing to go at all by calming myself down. Lots of steps in between. Took many, many months. But I'd been baffled by my sudden inability to control my temper, and like most things, stumbled upon a solution -for me, at least- by accident.

& in more detail

Post by Friday Discipline, Self Control, Target ID

Post by Friday Hard time Controlling Anger

Post by Friday Summary
 
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"Eventually I could start to recognize that I was going to need to go out to the shed soon, and pre-empt needing to go at all by calming myself down." Said @Friday

Exactly the deal. "Let it all out" gets to be a habit you don't need, you need to see it coming and head it off at the pass.

It seems to have gotten worse since I've started the therapy. It's kind of a blind rage.
Totally normal. When you are doing therapy, all that "stuff" is near the surface.

Learning about the stress cup:

A. Blew my mind. (Yep. All stress is stress....no good no bad its ALL stress. 🤯)
B. Has been the biggest help for sooooo many things with PTSD.

Get good at what empties your cup. For me a lot of times its grounding, and I started doing it to the point there was a longish silence in therapy one day and T asked what I was thinking - "I am in my T's office, I am safe, I see my T, I feel the leather couch...."

When you find yourself doing it without thinking about it, you are getting better at it.

Because the hard part is the surprises, like when you are sure your email password is right, and it isn't....
 
Yes people I collected glass jars in the past and smashed them against a wall outside. I feel though that this time things were different. But I'll try and see in a couple of days. Find something tricky, that makes me go over the edge. The password was correct.
 
i find myself hoping for a situation that would justify a release of anger energy. At some point along my path i think i started equating eating anger with swallowing pride. Getting full and not digesting well lately. Someone please pop my cork, large quantities of regurgitation await you. I am most definitely someones f’n huckelberry today. how far you going to go with me? im in.
 
For the Exposure therapy, I had to record the session. Every day I should listen to the recording at a different time and place in my flat. Next I have to fill in a sheet with my anxiety levels, before, at its highest peak and after. The first 2 days the anxiety was high. But lower though on the day I had the anger attack. Yesterday there was hardly any anxiety. Today however the anxiety was high like on the first day that I listened to the recording. This was because I listened more intense. I also became more aware what the cause is of the anxiety. The extreme reaction I had on the 15 th, must have contributed to this. It's not the memories of the abuse, it's the other stuff around it. The smell, the footsteps on the stairs. The door downstairs, I hear. And that suddenly there is a huge creature ( one of my brothers) in my bedroom. Every evening, I heard the door and listened. Who is coming up the stairs? Is he going to his bedroom? Or to mine? I listen if I can hear footsteps. And that you can't hear anything, but suddenly my room door opens. Anxiety level through the roof. I'm around age 11 when this starts. It ends age 16. Slowly other memories resurface. I never forgot the above. But the impact this made on me, I was only half aware of.
 
You could try boxing, or some form of karate, demolition work. Having an outlet is really helpful and eventually you may be able to channel it into such activities instead of items nearby.
 

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